_KEY POINTS_
Cracker Barrel’s CEO said changes were to make the restaurant “a place for everyone.”
For 20 years, Cracker Barrel has participated in the Human Rights Campaign’s ranking system, which measures companies’ adherence to pro-LGBT and progressive policies.
The company has long-standing, direct ties to the Human Rights Campaign.
Cracker Barrel’s progressive shifts were a direct response to the company’s gay discrimination scandal in the 1990s.
_THE SCOOP_
Upward News found an interview where Cracker Barrel’s new CEO revealed that the company’s design and logo changes were driven by a push for inclusivity and an effort to appeal to younger generations. The CEO said the goal was to ensure Cracker Barrel is “a place for everyone.”
But Cracker Barrel’s rebrand is just the latest move in decades of progressive changes, driven by company insiders with direct ties to organizations that enforce woke corporate ranking systems.
In fact, Cracker Barrel’s one-time “Management Training & Development” leader, Steve Smotherman, proudly founded and started the LGBT and workplace inclusion efforts at Cracker Barrel as an explicit response to its anti-gay controversies from the 1990s.
Smotherman wrote, “Cracker Barrel is infamous for their homophobic policies instituted back in 1991. In 2009, I was a founding member and led the LGBT Alliance, an Employee Resource Group, promoting LGBTQ awareness and building workplace inclusion."
Most notably, Upward News found that he also served on the Business Advisory Council for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), which Cracker Barrel had subjected itself to as a means to boost its progressive rankings.
HRC rates corporations based on their inclusivity and LGBT policies. Cracker Barrel began participating in HRC’s benchmarks in 2006, when it scored just 15 out of 100. That number rose to 55 in 2010, then 80 in 2019.
Upward News found that the former president of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) admitted that Cracker Barrel was “under fire” from the organization — and added that calling it “under fire” was actually an understatement.
Her remarks confirm that HRC, which ranks corporations based on adherence to progressive ideology, had directly targeted Cracker Barrel, pressuring the company into rebranding and aligning with woke causes over the past two decades.
The company has made several decisions seemingly influenced by these ratings. In 2014, it removed Duck Dynasty merchandise from its stores after a controversy over one of the cast members using gay slurs. In 2019, Cracker Barrel denied Pastor Grayson Fritts the ability to host an event at one of its restaurants after he made similar remarks. That year, Cracker Barrel received one of its highest rankings from HRC.
Smotherman left Cracker Barrel in 2020 to launch a diversity-focused consulting firm and later joined Out & Equal, the “premier” LGBT workplace equality group.
But his ties to the corporation didn’t end there. In 2024, Cracker Barrel openly participated in Nashville’s Pride celebration and directly partnered with Out & Equal. The HRC rewards companies with higher scores when they publicly support these kinds of progressive causes.
